


Turn it up

by writershapeholeonthedoor



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Awkward Romance, Declarations Of Love, F/F, Gen, Idiots in Love, Romance, root is there to hear, shaw grow some balls, shaw tries to comunicate, we should all thank gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 14:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19947583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writershapeholeonthedoor/pseuds/writershapeholeonthedoor
Summary: Tumblr Prompt: Hey if you’re taking Root x Shaw prompts, could you write Shaw telling Root about Gen’s analogy (her feelings are there, just low like a tape, that she just needs to pay attention to them) and trying to explain that she does have feelings for Root, and getting all spluttered, but root knows how Shaw feels anyway and knows how difficult her opening up is. Loving your writing!





	Turn it up

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, anon, who submited the prompt. I hope you liked reading it as much as I liked writing it.  
> You should follow me on Tumblr, @imagineheadcanonsarea, so we can talk, you can message me, send me an ask, send me prompts or tell me if I fucked up!  
> Also, english is not my first language, so please let me know if there's something wrong.

Gen was one of the smartest kids Shaw ever met. Not that she had talked with many, but she imagined Gen was still going to be on top even if she had. It wasn’t hard to realize – the kid was only ten and had already set up a whole spy secret room for herself – but Shaw was still impressed with how far the girl’s mind could go.

_It’s not like you don’t have feelings. It’s just, like... the volume is turned way down. Like the sound on an old tape. The voices are there. You just have to listen._

And that was what she was trying to do for the past week and a half after she said her goodbyes to the young girl. That was probably the first time someone had ever being able to explain the way her mind worked and that person was only ten years old. Shaw thought she should tell the girl to be a psychiatrist if her spy job didn’t worked, but honestly she didn’t thought the girl would ever fail at anything.

_I don’t feel scared. Or sad. Or happy. Or lonely. What I do feel is anger._

Shaw knew, since she was a little girl, that she was different from everyone else and she had no one that could understand what was wrong with her all her life. In that week and a half, thinking about all her talks with Gen and about all the other things in her life, Shaw realized that it had changed at some point. She wasn’t quite sure when – maybe when a taser touched her skin – but she could understand how. The ‘why’ was still a puzzle.

_It’s not like you don’t have feelings... You just have to listen._

That was the reason she had called Root’s name that night when the hacker was about to leave the subway. The hacker sounded as surprised as Shaw when she turned around, gentle smirk and arched eyebrows.. Root didn’t even questionated her or made a joke or a mocking comment, she just stood there, waiting.

_You just have to listen._

Shaw was not good with words. Her mind struggles to find the right ones, her thoughts always seemed too foggy for her to understand and her feelings were nothing but a complex puzzle that gave her headaches. And everytime she thought she had found the right way to say something, her mouth wouldn’t cooperate. She would stutter, say the complete opposite from what she wanted, her tongue would feel like it didn’t belonged there and her jaws clenched like they were trying to stop her to voice her words.

She wasn’t good with actions either. Her body was always tense, always in fight mode, looking over her shoulders, paying attention to every single little thing around her so she wouldn’t get surprised by anything. She was unable to relax, unable to do anything without a excrutiating amount of deliberation. She was good in following her instincts during a fight or a chase, but that was pretty much it.

Root knew all of that. She had to know it since day one, when she put an iron a few inches from Shaw’s face and saw the smirk in her lips. The hacker knew, from the start, that she wouldn’t hear Shaw talking about her feelings or sharing memories or anything like that. And she was fine with it – as long as Shaw could tell. Root was patient with her and her fucked up mind, waiting for Shaw to be ready, to do something.

The former marine wasn’t oblivious. She could tell Root was flirting and she could see that the woman felt something for her, even if Shaw herself couldn’t place a finger on exactly what it was. But Shaw made a very good job to ignore the other woman’s attempts, because that thing inside of her was toxic. Or, better saying, the thing that wasn’t there.

_It’s not like you don’t have feelings. It’s just, like... the volume is turned way down. Like the sound on an old tape. The voices are there. You just have to listen._

Root was standing in the other side of the subway, holding her phone in one hand and her jacket in the other one “Sup, Sam?” Root gave her a large smile.

“What are you, uh- where are you going?” Shaw was starting to regret her decision and she had only said one sentence.

“My place, I suppose.” Root’s smile, if it was possible, got even bigger and she took a step foward.

The shorter woman took one step back and slided her hands in her back pockets so she could hide that they had started to shake a bit. Root decided to throw her jacket in the bench by her side, back to where it was before, and pulled Harold’s chair so she could sit. She had no idea what was going on, but she was willing to listen to whatever Shaw wanted to talk about.

“So... are we going to have a girls night? A slumber party? Should I order pizza?” Root questioned waving her phone. The truth was that she was starving, and Shaw was always hungry, so that sounded like a great idea.

“Not fair.” Shaw groaned almost like she was in pain and rolled her eyes. “Can we go back to that later?” All of her muscles were tense, like she was about to get in a fight for her life, and that made all alarms in Root’s head go off.

“Shaw?” Root took a careful look in the woman standing in front of her, head to toes. She felt like walking towards her, to touch and confort her, but Shaw looked like she was cornered by a predator. In any other circumstance, Root would have loved to make a joke about it, but she could feel it was taking everything in Shaw not to ran away.

Shaw sighed heavly, uncapable of bring herself to look directly at the hacker’s coffee colored eyes, so she was going to keep her eyes in Bear sleeping under the desk to be able to do it.

_You just have to listen to it._

“I... I, uh-... I talked with Gen... about something.” Great start, Shaw. She rolled her eyes to herself and pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance. “She said something that... made me think.”

“Okay.” Root crossed her legs and arms, trying to get ready to whatever was about to happen. “Did you let a kid lecture you?” That’s how she deal with things that made her nervous: humor and sarcasm.

“You would be surprised.” Shaw agreeded with an eye roll and a scoff. “She... she pointed out that I was different from the people she know. She, uh-... she was surprised because I wasn’t scared to be chased down by some guys holding guns.”

Root nodded. She was starting to get an idea to where that conversation was going and she was afraid she might say anything that would scare the shorter woman away. “She’s ten, can’t blame her for having some fight or flight reactions.”

Shaw shook her head and closed her hands in tight fists by her sides, closing her eyes. It didn’t felt like she was listening to it, whatever _it_ was. She almost scolded herself for listening to a kid, but she was too far to back down now. “Gen said... she pointed that I was wrong about something and... God, why is this so hard?”

“Because you’re different from everyone else.” Root whispered with a low voice. The muscles in her arms twitched to reach to Shaw and touch her, but the hacker kept her position.

“Yeah, tell me about it.” A dry laugh scaped Shaw’s throat, no humor and kind of self degrading. She moved her head to the side just the enough so she could see Root sitting in the chair like she was waiting for some bad news. “That was the thing we could agree on.”

“You and me?”

“No, Gen and I.” Shaw thought for a second and then added: “You and me too, I suppose.”

Root flicked her tongue over her lips, considering her words carefuly. “What did she said?”

The former marine took a deep breath and also crossed her arms as they locked eyes. Shaw knew she had to do it, she just didn’t know how, and now that she had a full vision of Root patiently waiting, her brain decided to shut down completly. “Did you ever tried to hear an old tape?”

Root wanted to ask her what it had to do with the subject, but decided not to interrupt her. Shaw had an unique way to work, she had learned that, and she was going to wait as long as she had to. “I had this really old tape when I was a kid. Believe it or not, Bon Jovi. Everytime I tried to play it, the sound was so bad that I wanted to throw it out.”

“Did you?”

“Never.” Root smiled foundly to the old memory she never reached in her mind. “I liked it too much, never had the courage to do it. I think I lost it at some point.” She shrugged. The last time she ever saw it, Hanna was with her, so it had been a long time.

Shaw nodded and bit her bottom lip. “That’s the point.”

“The point?”

Shaw groaned and slaped her forehead with the back of her hand. It was harder to hear than an old tape, Gen would have to work in her metaphors. “I don’t know how to say it.” She admited in a whisper.

Root gave her a reassuring smile. Acting like a real twelve years old – wanting nothing more than make Shaw smile a little – the hacker uncrossed her legs, put both of her hands under the seat and started to roll her chair towards Shaw until their eyes met again. The other woman had a really small grin that made Root’s heart jump in her chest. “Why don’t you tell me what Gen told you? You can go from there.”

“Yeah, sure.” Shaw cleared her throat and took a deep breath. She was going to stole a ten years old girl’s words and she wasn’t even ashamed by it now that she had proved she couldn’t do it by herself. “She said that it’s not that I don’t have feelings, it’s just... is hard for me to hear them, because their volume is turned down.”

“Like an old tape.” Root offered gently. Her heart was beating faster as the minutes went by and she had not idea how she hadn’t jumped from her chair yet.

“Yes, exactly that.” Shaw let all air scape her lungs. “She said I just have to... listen to it.”

“Do you agree with her?” The hacker was scared to ask, but she needed to know.

“I don’t know.” Shaw admited with a shrug. To be honest, she didn’t know what to think exactly, all she knew was that she realized Root was different for her, just like Shaw was different from everyone else. “I think she might be a little too positive about it.”

“What do you mean?” Root wondered, her brow frowning while she talked.

Shaw sighed and ran a hand throught her hair. She wanted to walk away from the unconfortable place, to run, to shoot someone. “I’m not good with feelings, Root. I don’t feel things like everyone else does. In fact, the only thing I feel is anger. I would say it’s the only normal thing I feel, but not even that can be called normal. I’m sure I feel it much more than normal people do.”

“Sameen...”

“And I know I’m hard to deal with because of that. I can’t feel things.”

“I know that.” Root’s voice was low and her eyes suddenly moved to her feet, a pink color making it’s way to her face. “That’s what makes me like you.” She admited quietly.

Shaw’s eyes went comically wild. “What?”

The hacker rolled her eyes to her own words. “Like really like you. I know it’s lame, I just wanted you to know that.”

Shaw frowned, clearly confused with how the conversation had turned to be. “The fact that I don’t have feelings makes you like me?” She sounded incredulous, shocked, and that made Root meet her eyes again.

“No.” Her voice was firm once more, certain. “The fact that you’re not like everyone else makes me like you. It’s the fact that you don’t feel things like everyone else does. It’s the fact that you’re unique. That’s why I like you.”

“Root... This is...”

“Sam...” Root finally raised from the chair, kicking it to the side, licking her lips. Bear opened his eyes to shot them a tired look, but was fast asleep before they could even notice his move. “No one can tell you how you feel. You’re the only one who know how you work, how your mind work, how your feelings work. But I agree with Gen.” The taller woman gave her a lovely smile and Shaw felt her stomach flip. “That might be a little tendentious of me.” She giggled quietly.

Shaw took a shaky breath. Her whole body felt like it was about to explode, like she was going to burst in flames. “I’m... willing to try and... listen to it.”

Root’s eyes were shining bright with emotions and Shaw felt a little jealous. She wished she could be that good with the good emotions like she was with the bad ones. “That’s all I ask.”

“I just... I mean... You will have to... be patient.” Shaw was not used to stutter, specially so many times in the same conversation, but she couldn’t help herself.

“It’s okay. I do have a record of keeping old tapes.” Root slowly moved her hand so the tip of her fingers were touching the tip of Shaw’s fingers.

And Root knew. She knew she shouldn’t expect a big romantic gesture, a love letter, a note in her back pocket, some expensive gift or an engagement ring. Root knew she would be glad with whatever Shaw was willing to give her.


End file.
